DESERT HARVEST—Spring 1999
Vol. 7, No. 1

From the desk of the Director
Prof. Dr. Heiko A. Oberman

   This has been an amazing year for the Division. To begin with and foremost, in January Professor Susan Karant-Nunn joined our team as Assistant Director. Her research interest in the social history of the Renaissance and Reformation ideally complements my work, rounding out the profile of the Division. In October 1998 her recent book, The Reformation of Ritual , won the Roland H. Bainton Prize in History and Theology—named after the inimitable Yale Luther scholar. The immediate yield from her appointment was an impressive increase in the number of strong candidates applying for admission to our graduate program in the next academic year. What is more, the four admitted—sought after by eminent history departments on account of their credentials—decided to come to the University of Arizona for their graduate work in European history, 1300-1700.
    From an administrative point of view, equally important for the day-to-day operation of the Division is the appointment of Beth Carter. Beth assists Luise Betterton in her manifold roles as Administrative Associate. In short, in the space of a single year the Division has doubled—in body and soul!
    When this center of historical research has been poetically praised as a 'rare flower in the desert', I have always felt somewhat uneasy, mindful of the words of the psalmist about the fleeting nature of human success: "As for man, his days are like grass;  he flourishes like the flower of the field--the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more" (Ps. 103:15-16). With the commitment of Provost Paul Sypherd and Dean Holly Smith to seek a replacement for me upon my retirement (in the next millennium or so!), today the Division is firmly rooted, better prepared to withstand the 'desert heat' of future shifting academic moods and fashions.
    In the past I have expressed on this very page my gratitude to the Friends of the Division for their ongoing generous support. For the year 2000 we have planned a novel "Thank You," a "Three-Week, Three European Capitals Lecture Tour" in April, with a week each in London, Rome, and Amsterdam. As in the case of the Sunday-Night Seminar (of ten-years' standing) and the Annual Lecture (inaugurated 15 years ago), these 'joint' events are precious bridges between Town and Gown. Above all, I know that I can speak for all of us in expressing the special joy that we not only need but have also found one another.

From the Assistant Director
Prof. Dr. Susan C. Karant-Nunn

    I am pleased and honored to join the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies as Assistant Director. I look forward to many years of cooperation in the Division's internationally known enterprise of educating dynamic new scholars and teachers in the fields we share. My pleasure and my labors extend to the Department of History, of which I am also a member.
    Just since arriving her in January, I have had an opportunity  to become acquainted with the current doctoral students who are in residence. The first place where I saw them all in action was at the Thursday-evening seminar of January 21. Heiko Oberman welcomed me with a three-hour session devoted to my own work. I was surprised and impressed by Jonathan Reid's long, considered presentation on my recent book, The Reformation of Ritual:  An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany. He had clearly put much effort into his paper. Most moving of all, he understood what I was attempting to do. One cannot always rely on that! All the students then plied me with probing questions about my book. I thank them all again for their kind attention. I shall repay them in the future by reading their seminar papers and dissertations very closely indeed!
    Another surprise were the donors who, through their regular monetary gifts and their friendship, make a part of the Division's work possible. I have seen in very short order how indispensable this generosity of pocketbook and of spirit are. From the beginning, then, I want to join my expression of gratitude to that of the Director.

A week of scholarship: Professor Robert Wistrich
Victoria Speder

   The week of March 22nd was a busy and stimulating one for the Division. We were fortunate indeed to host visits from two leading scholars in diverse fields of history. The first to arrive was Dr. Robert Wistrich, professor of Modern European History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The author of 15 books and more than 250 articles, Professor Wistrich's research interests range from the history of Central European Jewry since the Enlightenment to anti-Semitism, Nazism, and Jewish revolutionary activity. In addition to this prolific writing career, Professor Wistrich has also written two screenplays on anti-Semitism, and is an advisor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Council of Europe on Racism, Xenophobia, and Anti-Semitism.
    Professor Wistrich delivered the Annual Town and Gown Lecture on the evening of March 24. Entitled "In the Footsteps of the Messiah: Herzl, Zionism, and the Millennial Fever," his lecture reached back into the nineteenth century to trace the roots of the Zionist movement, and drew conclusions pertinent to the tenuous situation in the Middle East today. He provided an overview of the life of Theodor Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Professor Wistrich aptly delineated the many and varied reactions to Herzl's message both in his own day and ours.
    Professor Wistrich's visit culminated on March 25 with a roundtable discussion on "Eliminationist Anti-Semitism: Was there a Special German Road?" He was joined by a panel of two professors from our History Department, Susan Crane and Douglas Weiner, and the discussion was moderated by our own Professor Oberman. Commenting on Daniel Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners , Wistrich pointed to a lack of historical contextualization in accounts that present the German variant of anti-Semitism as a predetermined path. He focused in particular on the ebb and flow of German anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the flourishing of the Jewish community prior to the Second World War, which are omitted from such accounts. This view was affirmed by Susan Crane, who stressed the importance of viewing history as a framework  of contingent events, and by Doug Weiner, who added details about Russian and Ukrainian anti-Semitism, which had been even more fervent that the German form in the years prior to World War II. The session ended with a period of energized discussion by the audience.
    Professor Wistrich’s visit was followed by that of Dr. Robert M. Kingdon, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was guest of honor at our Thursday-night circle. A prolific scholar of Early Modern Europe, Professor Kingdon has written extensively on Calvin, the Calvinist church in Geneva, and the spread of Calvinism into France. In answer to the question of what makes him “tick” as an historian, he shared generously with us regarding his own experiences. He described his childhood in Hawaii, his transition to the continental United States during the Second World War, and his undergraduate years at Oberlin College. He went on to tell us about his graduate study at Columbia University and the personal and professional ties he forged with Professor Roland Bainton at Yale, which he regards as a career-forming relationship.
    Professor Kingdon’s latest project is a nine-volume critical edition of the Genevan Consistory records, the first volume of which has already been published. This project, which will take at least ten years, will provide scholars with access to a fascinating array of documents on the disciplinary problems in the early Genevan Church under the leadership of John Calvin.
     We offer our sincere thanks to both of these captivating scholars, and to those who made their fruitful visits possible.

Reflections from beyond
Dr. Sigrun Haude

   It is hard to believe that I am already in my fifth year at the University of Cincinnati. When I left Tucson in 1993 with a Ph.D. in hand, I first took a one-year visiting professorship at Stockton State College in New Jersey before I accepted a tenure-track position in Reformation history at the University of Cincinnati.
    The University, celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, is comparable in size to The University of Arizona. Like so many other state institutions, we are bogged down by budget cuts, and then more budget cuts, particularly in the humanities. However, the ten humanities departments here are blessed with being the beneficiaries of a large foundation (Taft) that cannot be touched by the administration. Whether undergraduates, graduates, faculty, or post-doctorates from elsewhere, competitive applicants here can find support.
    The doctoral fellowships for our graduate students often remind me of the essential support I have received from the Division during my own formative years at The University of Arizona. Grants during the last few yearss have made it possible for me to do summer research and to attend conferences. I was able to build on my dissertation, expand its scope, and turn it into a wholly revised book manuscript (Anabaptist Münster and Church Reform in Sixteenth-Century Germany), which has been accepted by Humanities Press (Brill) and will go to press later this year. During the last two years, I have also begun to develop my next research project, which deals with the cultural history of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). I am much interested in how people dealt with three decades of painful, repeated, sometimes catastrophic losses and everyday hardships.
    Looking back at the history of the last 15 years—from 1984, when I went to Tucson to study with Professor Oberman, until 1999, which sees me hovering on the edge of tenure—I find much continuity. I like to think that we carry on the legacy of Professor Oberman in our careers, a legacy of rigorous historical research and analysis. But what I call "the spirit of Tucson" is only in part academic. Our mentor knew that without a good dose of joviality and collegiality, our future would be grim and lonely indeed. The yearly reunions at the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, sponsored by the Division, are a lively testimony to that enduring spirit.

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